Anyone who’s been in the keyboard game long enough will instantly recognise the Ducky brand. But here in South Africa, only those who were willing to pay the import costs and get them from overseas have been lucky enough to use them.
So you can imagine my excitement when we discovered that local suppliers have finally started to import the brand.
And so, for the first time ever, I was able to get my hands on a Ducky Keyboard. I was a little shaky, and the excitement was palpable.
Nazca Lines
The latest Ducky keyboard to hit the market is the Ducky One III Pro Nazca Line Edition. If you don’t know what that means, Nazca Lines are those huge geoglyphs drawn into the Earth in Peru. I expected the keyboard to have some line art, but it doesn’t. Instead, the Nazca Line Edition has a sleek, navy blue base colour peppered with orange keys and text. Perhaps this orange and blue represents the desert at night, but, for me, it doesn’t represent the Nazca Lines.
Ok, rant over. Let’s get back to the review.
Packaging
The packaging is good, but it’s nothing I haven’t seen with other keyboards before, so lets move on. Inside the box, you get a keyboard, some Ducky stickers, a braided USB A to USB C cable, a key switch puller, a keycap remover, and a set of extra orange keys to replace a few of the standard blue ones.
The Ducky One III Pro is a wired-only keyboard, so don’t lose that braided cable.
Layout and Build
The keyboard comes in a full-size layout and a 60% version that they call the Ducky One III Pro Mini. Both of these keyboards are the same in terms of features and what comes in the box. The only difference is the number of keys on the keyboard.
Since I’m used to playing on the Logitech Pro X 60, I spent most of my time on the Mini.
The keyboard feels solid, with a little flex on the full-size board and no flex on the Mini. The keycaps feel nice on the fingers and should last a lifetime, thanks to being a triple-shot PBT (Polybutylene terephthalate). Yup, that means there are three whole layers of colour for extra protection.
You can choose between four Cherry MX2A flavours: Brown, Blue, Red and Speed Silver. The Cherry MX2A switches are an upgrade to the ever-popular Cherry MX switches and certainly live up to the name. They are smoother, less wobbly, and feel like a premium switch overall.
With the added Webby Mat and Poron Film inside the board, I’m quite pleased to say the Ducky One III Pro offers a pleasant typing experience. Although, for all of Ducky’s “Quack Mechanics” and “improved sound design” talk, I have played with other keyboards that offered a more satisfying sound experience out of the box.
To clarify, “Quack Mechanics” is Ducky’s fancy naming convention for an improved typing experience.
Performance and Configuration
The Ducky One III Pro also boasts an 8K polling rate, which should get a few pro-level gamers excited, but I could barely feel a difference compared to the 1K wireless polling rate from my regular keyboard. I may be too old to feel the difference, but an 8K polling rate seems slightly overkill.
This brings me to the next part of Ducky’s keyboard overkill—overkill on my poor little brain. Because Ducky opts not to have any software installed on your PC, all its functionality is programmed on the keyboard. From choosing polling rates to creating custom RGB lighting options, everything is done with a dip switch, key press, or Beethoven length combination.
There’s no denying how difficult it is to remember everything you must do to change settings. Luckily, in most cases, you’ll only have to set it up once and then leave it as such.
You might change the RGB lighting more often than the rest of the settings. While it is difficult to navigate the three different RGB layers, you’ll always end the session well-satisfied. There are many ways to configure the lighting creatively, and the south-facing RGB really illuminates the keyboard.
The lack of software does make me happy that I don’t have to install yet another program, but the downside means I always need to remember where I saved the damn keyboard manual.
Overall, I am happy that I checked a Ducky off my list. It was a great keyboard to play around with. However, it may have been too little, too late. I had the privilege of playing around with quite a few good keyboards before using the Ducky, which means Ducky had some big shoes to fill – and they almost did. The Ducky One III Pro and One III Pro Mini are priced at around R3,300 and R2,400, respectively, and these aren’t the most expensive boards out there, but they aren’t cheap either. If you’re looking for a great keyboard that won’t let you down, you won’t go wrong with a Ducky One III Pro, but with some digging, you could find a better-fit board for you.
Bonus Content:
I also had the pleasure of testing out Ducky’s Leather Wrist Rest. It’s handy that it isn’t connected to the keyboard, so you can position it exactly where your wrists rest. Because it’s leather, hot summer days could leave it a little sweaty, but a wet wipe should easily fix this. This wrist rest stays firmly in place, so it doesn’t slide all over your desk. It also sits right in the sweet spot for size. It’s just unnoticeable enough not to get in your way but still provide good wrist support.